


just the way of the world

by ericawrites, killproof



Series: we could push all the limits [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bisexual Krolia (Voltron), F/M, Gen, M/M, Trans Female Character, Trans Keith (Voltron), Trans Krolia (Voltron), cant tag cause he doesnt have a canon name but, keiths parents are both bi and trans i do what i want, the whole family is trans. fuck you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-07-28 10:54:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16240181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ericawrites/pseuds/ericawrites, https://archiveofourown.org/users/killproof/pseuds/killproof
Summary: There’s always something that goes wrong in life, Krolia supposes. She understands this; she gets it.She never realized exactly how wrong things could go.





	1. it never ends 'til the end

**Author's Note:**

> title from “thumbs” by sabrina carpenter
> 
> yes i know krolia wouldnt know keith is a boy when he was a baby but i didn't wanna misgender him so here we are. its ok just pretend it makes sense - keith
> 
> idk why yall were saying that the first fic was a crack fic?? its not but im glad u find it funny!! tysm for enjoying our bad humor - erica

Krolia meets Jacob Mahale when she’s seventeen. 

Maybe “meet” is generous ─the two of them go to the same school for a brief stint in her senior year. It’s easily the sixth one of her high school career; her parents are military, and don't have any qualms with relocating whenever and wherever, regardless of Krolia’s opinions on the matter. The place is her least favorite of the six, a fact she decided the moment her family's U-Haul rolled over the Texas state lines and she was greeted with a vast expanse of desert and pure  _ nothing.  _

She remembers Jacob for dark eyes boring into her skull in English class and the smell of oil smudged on his clothes. She asked him about it, once, and he seemed guilty─said he had a job as a mechanic at his dad’s shop down the road and could never get the stains out. Looking back, Krolia bets that she wouldn't have bothered talking to him if she hadn't noticed the bisexual flag sewn onto the shoulder of his jacket, but that isn't the only reason he’d stuck himself so firmly into her memory. It was the pooling black of his irises, the way they lit up when she nudged his arm and showed off the matching flag button on her backpack, the quirk of his smile.

Like most things growing up, it doesn't end up mattering much. She leaves town almost immediately after graduation, and moves on to college. Other cities. Other boys, other girls.

None of them have bi flags sewn onto their jackets or dark eyes that light up the way Jacob’s did. 

✦

After Krolia enlists in the army (shocker), she settles in New Mexico (actually a shocker). She’s fresh off her third tour with not much to show for it but new scars and a shaky trigger finger, and she decides that the best place to go is the middle of nowhere. Nine-years-ago Krolia would probably hate her for it, hate the red dust and reminder of the shitty small town back in Texas, but it’s become calming to her, in a weird sort of way. She can see the stars at night out here. 

She's making her way back home from her stop in town for essentials, the wheels of her Jeep rattling over desert rock, when she sees the speeder in the distance.

It’s barely a speck of red on the horizon, at first ─it grows slowly as her car draws closer, the shape defining itself and white stripes making themselves known on the tail of the speeder. Krolia presses down on the brake when she notices the figure standing next to it. Her Jeep pulls to a stop a few feet away, and she opens the driver-side door, leaning out with one hand gripping the roof.

“Hey, you need any help?” Krolia asks. The figure turns around, and at first all she sees is a mess of dark hair and a scar biting into an eyebrow, but her eyes land on dark brown eyes flashing golden in the desert sunlight, and her breath catches. 

“My tank ran out,” Jacob Mahale says, apologetic. There’s still a bi flag sewn onto his shoulder, faded into soft blues and pinks. “If you have any gas, I could use it.” 

“Oh,” Krolia says breathlessly, her foot landing heavily in the sand when her grip on the roof slips. “Oh! Um, right. I have some in the trunk.” She says, stumbling over her words, still half-stuck in surprise and nostalgia.

“Ah, that's great.” Jacob replies, smiling. He walks forward, following her to the back of her Jeep and leaning against the frame while she looks for the canister of gas she’d gotten from the general store in town. “You know, you look real familiar.” He says after a long moment. Krolia flushes, hoping it passes as a sunburn as she straightens and hands over the canister. 

“Yeah. We went to high school together awhile, I think,” she says, nearly heaving a sigh of relief when her voice comes out calm and collected. Jacob’s eyes widen slightly, and it takes him a moment before he reaches for the canister, a wide smile breaking over his face.

“Oh, shit! Right, we had English together senior year. You’re, uh─”

“Krolia,” She finishes for him. Jacob nods, still smiling. 

“You look different,” He says, gaze trailing over her. She feels every muscle tense, hyper-aware of every part of her that hormones had changed, how starkly different she is from the person Jacob knew in high school. Then his endlessly dark eyes draw back up to meet hers, and he says: “Good different.” 

“I,” she starts, mouth dry. “Thank you?” It comes out sounding more like a question, and she winces internally. Jacob’s lips turn up at the corners, eyes crinkling. 

“Me too, y’know.” He adds, sounding pleased, and Krolia’s eyes catch on a pin stuck through the strap of his bag, flashing blue-pink-white in the scorching sunlight. She opens her mouth, then closes it, and ends up nodding at him in silent understanding. 

Jacob grins, teeth flashing white against sun-tanned skin, and Krolia feels seventeen and stupid all over again.

✦

She sees Jacob a lot more after that.

At first, it's passable as accidents ─running into each other in town, on her way back to her house. Eventually, it feels less like pleasant surprises and more like Jacob is waiting around the general store for her to come in. If the cashier’s amused expression holds any weight, Krolia’s right. 

After a few weeks, she swallows her pride and asks if he wants to come by her house.

His answering smile is worth it. 

(They kiss a week later, and she doesn't regret any of it.) 

✦

The first time she holds Keith, Krolia is speechless. She stares down at him, breath caught in her throat, as one tiny hand stretches itself out of the stark white hospital blanket and he yawns, eyes scrunched up and a soft noise escaping his mouth. 

“Pretty cute, right?” Jacob says from behind her, voice quiet in the empty room. Keith stirs, wriggling in his swaddling until he seems satisfied, hands balled up under his chin. 

“We made this,” Krolia says reverently, reaching out to carefully prod at one of Keith’s tiny fists. His nose wrinkles, and he blinks big gray-brown eyes up at her, fist unfurling and grabbing at her finger. 

_ “‘This’  _ has your eyes,” Jacob says, tucking his chin over her shoulder and smiling down at Keith. Krolia watches as his small hand uncurls from her finger, grabbing for Jacob’s instead, his eyes wide and curious. 

“So  _ small.”  _ She whispers. Jacob laughs, leaning his cheek into the crook of her neck. 

“Yeah, sweetheart. Babies are pretty small.” Krolia ignores the amused tone of his voice, instead watching as Keith apparently loses interest in Jacob’s finger and lets go, eyes falling closed again and hand retreating into the swath of his blanket. She hugs Keith a little closer to her chest, watching the rise and fall of the blanket as he breathes. She turns her head to meet Jacob’s gaze, a soft smile curling at her lips.

“I'm really glad we did this,” she says. Jacob smiles in turn, and she feels his arms slip around her waist, wrapping around where she cradles Keith gently. 

“Me too,” he says, planting a kiss on her cheek. She leans into it, sighing.

“I love you,” she says. With a teasing smile, she says: “And I love  _ ‘this’.”  _ Jacob rolls his eyes, settling his chin back into the curve of her shoulder.

“I love you, too. Even if you refer to our baby as an object.” 

✦

There’s always something that goes wrong in life, Krolia supposes. She understands this; she gets it.

She never realized exactly how wrong things could go.

She has to go back to active duty when Keith is little more than a year old─it’s with extreme reluctance, but she does nonetheless. The memory of Jacob holding him gently, making him wave goodbye as Krolia boards the plane is burned into her brain the whole tour.

It holds, tethers her to reality when she loses her troop. When she’s stuck in the middle of god-knows-where, missing home, hoping she’ll look down and her boots will be stained with red dust instead of mud, planted in the middle of the walk back up to her house in the desert. Jacob’s house. Keith’s.  _ Theirs. _

Krolia thinks it’s depressingly ironic that the things keeping her from death are gone when she finally makes it back home.

She’d been missing in action a lot longer than she thought, and in this time a lot of things manage to happen. Jacob, stupid and self-sacrificing as always, died trying to rescue one last person from a fire that burned a building to the ground. Keith had been tossed into the foster system, and despite Krolia’s best efforts, no one seems to be able to tell her where he is. 

She’s thirty-six, off her fourth tour with a host of new scars and fresh trauma, and her husband is dead, her son long gone somewhere no one can tell her, papers lost in too many shuffles for her to think about.

There’s not a lot left to hang on to.

Somehow, she does.


	2. then you start again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krolia can barely breathe. Keith, born the same day, same year, raised in the foster system, has her eyes─
> 
> No, she thinks. The universe isn’t this nice.

Krolia’s settled into her couch, watching TV and eating Cheetos with chopsticks (while sending a mental thank you to Oscar Isaac for being a  _ genius _ ) when she sees the trailer for some sort of new sci-fi film. In the back of her mind, she really just wants the commercial to end so she could finish the newest thrilling episode of Beachfront Bargain Hunt when one of the characters catches her eyes.

Krolia watches, almost mystified as the person interacts with other characters. She studies his facial features, his stance, his hair, his eyes─

_ ‘This’ has your eyes _ , She hears Jacob tease, and her heart stops.

In the years since she’d come back to find her husband dead and child lost within the papers of the foster care system, she’d spent hours staring at herself and desperately trying to map her own eyes, hoping that Jacob had been right in mentioning the matching eyes.

_ Keith Shirogane _ , text flashes over the screen. _ Expatriate _ ,  _ rated PG-13, now in theaters everywhere. _

Krolia pauses the TV, Beachfront Bargain Hunt forgotten, and fumbles for her phone. She types in  _ ‘Expatriate Cast’ _ and taps on the name  _ ‘Keith Shirogane’. _ She’s taken to his wikipedia page, and desperately tries to read up on him.

Keith Shirogane (born October 23d, 20XX), is an American musician. He was raised in  foster care until he was adopted by Takashi Shirogane in 20XX at age 15. He first gained recognition from his EP,  UNTITLED , followed by his album  senior year . He also starred in  Expatriate alongside his friend and rumored partner,  Lance Álvarez . Shirogane is openly  gay .

Krolia can barely breathe. Keith, born the same day, same year, raised in the foster system, has her eyes─

_ No _ , she thinks.  _ The universe isn’t this nice. _

And yet, there’s a part of her that still hopes.

 

✦

 

Almost a week later, Krolia finds herself in some random music store, looking through the albums.

She’d barely gotten any sleep during the week (really, she can’t remember the last time she’d gotten a full night’s rest), pulling up a picture of Keith and staring helplessly at his eyes and try to match them with hers, Jacob’s words repeating over and over in her head every night.

Now, after a long week of debating with herself, she’s looking for his album. A poster, maybe. Something that can help her, maybe just a little. The universe had been throwing her scraps for the past week, but now she’s praying for a meal.

Krolia turns to another isle sharply, bumping into someone.

“Oh!” The other person exclaims, stepping back. “Shit, I’m sorry.” He’s a few inches shorter than her, with messy brown hair sticking out of a snapback twisted backwards, olive green jacket, baseball tee, and faded jeans. Large, wire-frame glasses sit askew on his face, and his sharp chin looks so familiar to her in a way she can’t place.

“Don’t be,” She says. “I’m rushing too much for someone in a music store anyways.”

The man laughs, adjusting his glasses. “Really? What are you looking for?”

“Keith Shirogane’s album.” She replies. The man’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline, mouth quirking into a grin.

“Keith Shirogane?” He says, sounding almost amused. “I think I can help you with that.”

Krolia smiles. “Please, lead the way.”

The man turns back into the isle he came from. Krolia follows, eyebrows furrowed and desperately trying to wrack her brain for where she’s seen him before.

“Here we are,” He says, coming to a stop. “Keith Shirogane. This store basically has a shrine dedicated to him.” He gestures up to the poster of Keith that’s hanging just above the CD’s. His hair is curled and tied back, wearing a crop top and ripped jeans, and has on a wild grin. It reminds her so much of Jacob’s that her heart aches, longing for her husband in a way she hasn’t in a very long time.

Krolia looks back at the man next to her, who’s also staring at the poster. With a moment of clarity and the recollection of eating Cheetos with chopsticks and watching a trailer for a PG-13 sci-fi movie, she whispers, “Lance Álvarez?”

The man─ _ Lance _ ─pales. He laughs awkwardly, and stuffs his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“Wow, would you look at the time? I have to go─” He says quickly, backing up. Krolia reacts faster than he can, grabbing his arm with more strength than necessary, and pulls him back.

“I need your help, please.” She says. Lance eyes dart over her face, concern open in his expression.

“With what?”

“I─” Her voice catches in her throat. Her grip on Lance’s arm loosens, and she looks back at the poster.

“This is going to sound really, really crazy, but…I think Keith is my son.” She says. Krolia can see Lance’s eyes widen from the corner of her eye. She looks back at him.

“You have his eyes.” He says.  _ “Hoooly _ shit, you’re Keith’s mom.”

Relieved, Krolia lets go of his arm. Lance plucks his glasses off his face to scrub at his eyes, then moves his hand away and gingerly puts them back on.

“Jesus─this is  _ not _ how I thought I’d spend my day.” He says. Krolia laughs a little breathlessly. 

“If it makes you feel better, I thought I was crazy until you agreed with me.”

Lance covers his growing smile with his hands, looking both ecstatic and wildly confused, which fairly accurately sums up how Krolia feels herself. “Holy fuck.”

“Yeah,” She agrees. “Holy fuck.”

 

✦

 

The next day, Krolia finds herself entering  _ Lance Álvarez’s _ apartment, carrying a bag with her laptop and a notebook dedicated to writing what she remembers starting from Keith being born to when she had come back from being missing in action and been told that her husband was dead and her son was lost in foster care.

“This is Hunk, he’s my best friend, and that’s Pidge, Keith’s best friend.” Lance says, ushering her into the living room.

Pidge adjusts her glasses, eyeing Krolia from her position on the couch.

“So, you think you’re Keith’s mom?” She says, looking her up and down clinically. Krolia nods. 

“Call it a mother's instinct.” She says, shrugging slightly. Pidge hums, apparently satisfied with the answer.

“Cool. Hunk, you got the goods?” She asks, holding a hand out towards the taller man.

“Yup,” He says, handing her a ziploc bag with a tangle of dark hair in it. “Managed to snatch some out of his brush before he left.”

“This is so weird. This is so  _ weird _ .” Lance mumbles, leaning against the couch to look over Pidge’s shoulder.

“It’s only weird because you and Keith have been sucking face nonstop for a week.” Pidge comments. Krolia’s eyes widen while Lance makes a wounded noise.

_ “Pidge!” _ He screeches, face flushing red. She jerks her head away from him, shooting him a look and rubbing at her ear.

“What? She deserves to know.” Pidge says, then turns to Krolia. “Now, woman that may or may not be my best friend’s mother, may I please have a strand of your hair in the name of science and friendship.”

Krolia reaches up to pluck a few strands out. “Is Keith not here?”

Lance and Hunk share a look.

“Keith, uh, had to go back to New Mexico. Besides, if he knew about you and about this…” Hunk trails off.

“Keith’s got a lot of unresolved issues due to being an orphan,” Pidge says. “If he knew we were doing this and you turned out to  _ not _ be his mom, it would probably tear him into two.”

“He tries to act like it wouldn’t bother him, but it would. I hate not telling him, but in the long run, it’ll hurt less if he didn’t know that there was a small possibility.” Lance adds.

“I see,” Krolia says, heart sinking at their implied doubt of her allegation. “Either way, I’m glad Keith has friends like you who care about him.” Pidge snickers, turning back to her laptop. 

“Lance does not fall under that category.” She mumbles. Krolia, now amused, just watches as Lance turns red once more.

“Pidgeee,” He whines, only receiving a grin in return. Krolia laughs, moving to sit on another open seat nearby.

For awhile, it’s mostly silent as Pidge and Hunk work together to run a DNA test. Lance eventually moves to the kitchen apparently far too restless to stand still. He cleans up whatever’s in the sink, playing music from his phone to provide some background noise. The music pauses every now and then, only for a second, prompting Lance to look at his phone with a dopey smile on his face.

Krolia finds herself eventually standing up and walking around the apartment, looking at pictures and pulling random books out of a bookshelf and opening them. A few are in Spanish, something she hadn’t really retained from high school, but she can make out a few sentences here and there.

There’s pictures, too─a lot of them. There’s some of Lance, Hunk and Pidge, but most of them seem to be of Lance’s family. His mother and father, grandparents, older siblings what might be nieces and nephews are scattered amongst several different frames.

It makes Krolia’s heart ache. She’s a realist, accepts what happens and moves on, but there are the pauses in life where she lets herself wonder what it would have been like if she hadn’t left Keith and Jacob. Would Jacob even be alive? Would Keith still have made music? Would he have ever met Pidge, Hunk, or Lance? Staring at the pictures, she lets her mind wander, explores all the different ways her life─ _ their _ life─could have gone. The way they could have lived if she hadn’t left.

“Holy shit,” Hunk gasps suddenly, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled over the room. Lance pauses his music, and Krolia jerks her head away from the wall of photos, walking back over to the couch where they sit.

“Holy shit.” Pidge agrees.

“What?” Lance asks, moving towards the couch. “What did you find?”

Pidge lifts her head while showing Lance her laptop screen, who sucks in a sharp breath.

“Congratulations,” Pidge says. “It’s a match.”

 

✦

 

pidge >> nothing to see here no

 

 **pidge** _Today at 3:35 PM_

matt and i just picked keith up from the airport

thankfully i am a Master at acting so he hasnt noticed anything

like how fucking nervous i am

 

 **lance** _Today at 3:37 PM_

relax

just let me do the talking, okay

 

 **hunk** _Today at 3:38 PM_

okay but like

actually talk

dont make out and try to talk in between shoving your tongues down each others throats

 

 **lance** _Today at 3:39 PM_

HUNK

 

 **krolia** _Today at 3:40 PM_

He has a point. 

 

 **lance** _Today at 3:41 PM_

i cannot believe

betrayed by my boyfriends long lost mother

this is #ridiculous i demand an apology or im taking this to court

 

 **krolia** _Today at 3:44 PM_

Bet.

 

 **pidge** _Today at 3:45 PM_

okay teaching krolia modern phrases was the best idea ever im gonna piss myself laughing

 

 **krolia** _Today at 3:46 PM_

I’m very glad you find me funny. 

 

 **hunk** _Today at 3:47 PM_

how did an angel like krolia have a demon like keith

 

 **lance** _Today at 3:48 PM_

on one hand, i want to argue and fight for my boyfriends honor

on the other, i want to drag this bitch for stealing my cereal all the fuckin time

 

 **pidge** _Today at 3:50 PM_

ten bucks says keith will go right for the cereal

 

 **krolia** _Today at 3:51 PM_

If he's anything like his father i'm not betting against you.

The man raided my pantry every goddamn day.

 

 **hunk** _Today at 3:52 PM_

KDKFKDK KROLIA

 

✦

 

It’s been about three weeks since Krolia knew Keith was her son and somehow, she still can’t believe that she’s going to see him.

Lance texted her a few minutes ago to inform him that Keith was  _ ‘freaking out, but otherwise down’, _ and her mental stopwatch started counting down until the moment that she’d see her son. Twenty-three years, give or take a Skype call or two with Jacob, and she’s going to see her son. 

Okay.

She still hasn’t completely shaken the fear that he’ll just hate her─the trio had assured her that they would explain what happened all those years ago to Keith so he wouldn’t be going in mad, but she knows better than to think that would erase years of him probably assuming that she was dead, or just didn’t care enough to find him. She’d spent  _ years _ trying, even after they told her he was states away by now, only stopped when she was worn down by failure after failure, and now here she was, finally─and she can’t stop worrying.

The sound of the doorknob turning pulls her abruptly from her thoughts, and she looks up to see a familiar face standing in the doorway.

He looks different without the alien costume or curled hair from the posters she’d seen him on up until now─and he’s shorter than she would’ve thought, moles she hadn’t noticed dotting his arms where his sweater is pushed up to his elbows, a few more around his eyes. In person, they have the same bottomless quality Jacob’s always did; the same color she sees every day in the mirror. 

“Oh,” he says quietly, letting the door creak shut behind him. “It’s really you.”

God, his  _ voice _ ─she’d heard it in the trailer and from his singing, but hearing it come from him without any makeup or curled hair, without a costume or his skin painted a different color, it feels so raw, so scary. So much like Jacob that her heart drops and her throat tightens, eyes welling up with tears she hasn’t cried in so long.

“Keith,” She says, his name falling from her tongue without her permission. He stares at her for a long, excruciatingly silent moment, then speaks.

“You…” He says, then pauses, swallowing. “You look just like Dad described you.”

Krolia’s heart aches, her stomach weak with butterflies that hadn’t flown in so long. A small smile finally rests on her face.

“Yeah? How’d he describe me?”

A small, nostalgic smile lifts Keith’s lips, a smile that she recalls seeing when he was younger, accompanied by quiet, burbling giggles and tiny outstretched hands.

“Beautiful.” He responds. Krolia’s eyes widen, then she lets a surprised laugh escape her, cheeks warming.

“He always was the biggest flirt.” She says. Keith hums, then looks to the side. Krolia does the same, not surprised to see the trio leaning on the back of the couch, accompanied by Hunk’s wide smile, Pidge’s knowing grin, and Lance’s beaming gaze that rests only on Keith.

“No, please, ignore us. We’re not even here.” Hunk says. Pidge sighs, rolling her eyes while Lance gives Hunk an incredulous look.

“Dude,” Keith deadpans. Pidge snorts, turning to sink back down in the couch.

“You guys can talk in Lance’s room. Be careful of used condoms, though.”

_ “Pidge!” _ Keith and Lance yell, both flushing a bright red. Hunk bursts into laughter, Pidge joining in with her cackling. Lance pouts, glaring at both of them. Keith just covers his face with his hands, groaning to himself.

“Lance’s room is down the hallway and on the right.” Hunk says, recovering from his laughing fit. Pidge is still giggling to herself as Lance sinks back down into the couch, still pouting. Keith rolls his eyes, sighing, and gestures for Krolia to follow him down the hallway. She obliges, and the two silently walk, tension thick and her own heart pounding.

Keith opens the door and lets her enter first, then follows in once she steps into the room. He closes the door behind the two of them and makes a beeline for Lance’s bed, where he sits and lets out a long, tired sigh.

“So,” he says, looking up at her. “We probably have some shit to talk about.”

“Yeah,” Krolia agrees, taking the chair from Lance’s desk and pulling it to sit in front of Keith. “I think we do.”

 

✦

 

 **keith** _Today at 10:28 PM_

it was really nice to talk to you today

and, yknow, meet you

 

 **krolia** _Today at 10:30 PM_

Likewise.

I know I said it earlier, but I missed you so much while I was away.

I’m glad I get to know you now, though.

 

 **keith** _Today at 10:33 PM_

yeah

everything worked out in the end, i guess

i gtg, but hopefully we can meet up and talk again soon?

 

 **krolia** _Today at 10:35 PM_

Yes! I would love to.

Have fun on your date with Lance ;)

 

 **keith** _Today at 10:36 PM_

first of all, how do you know what emoticons are

second of all, how tf did you know we’re going on a date??

 

**krolia** _ Today at 10:38 PM _

Lance may or may not have called me last week to ask for permission to take you out on a proper date.

Supposedly, he called Shiro as well.

 

 **keith** _Today at 10:40 PM_

oh my god

 

 **krolia** _Today at 10:41 PM_

Go have fun, Keith.

We’ll talk again later.

 

 **keith** _Today at 10:43 PM_

i will

see you soon krolia

**Author's Note:**

> if you liked this fic, please rb it on tumblr!
> 
> [erica's tumblr](http://heavenlyagate.tumblr.com/)
> 
> [keith's tumblr](http://killproof.tumblr.com/post/178875277498/just-the-way-of-the-world)


End file.
